


i have loved the stars too fondly (to be fearful of the night)

by GalaxyOwl



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/F, i tried to make this happy but i'm pretty sure that was a doomed goal from the start
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6736390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyOwl/pseuds/GalaxyOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The station was so empty. So many people were gone. But Fourier was here, starry-eyed and brilliant. That had to count for something.</p><p>(Or: Lovelace and Fourier build an escape ship out of nothing but scrap metal and the power of love.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i have loved the stars too fondly (to be fearful of the night)

**Author's Note:**

> So this, uh, sure is a thing I wrote. ~~Complete with pretentious title.~~ I'm irrationally invested in this ship at this point.

Lovelace stood outside of Fourier’s quarters, hesitated a moment longer, raised her hand to knock. If Fourier would rather sleep in today, maybe it would be kinder if she just let her.

But then, outer space didn’t care about kindness. Goddard definitely didn’t.

She knocked on the door.

Soon enough, Fourier appeared, hair vaguely tangled from sleep and lack of gravity. She watched Lovelace silently from the doorway a moment.

“Fourier,” Lovelace said, by way of greeting. “I need you on shuttle work today, if you can at all manage it.”

Fourier didn’t answer. Didn’t even meet her eyes. Maybe she _should_ have just let her be. 

“Doctor?” Lovelace said.

“How do you even do that?” Fourier said. “How can you be talking about—about that, when…”

She hated this. “I think…” she said. “I think Hui wouldn’t want us to waste time. I know it’s hard, but he wanted us to make it home. If we don’t get off this station, then… they all died for nothing.” Never mind that they all probably died for nothing anyways. Never mind that their chances of doing any better were still so, so slim.

Fourier didn’t say anything in response. Lovelace couldn’t blame her.

But someone had to say _something_. After all of this, someone had to be the responsible one. And if no one else was around to do it, then damn it, she would.

“Come on,” she said, “let’s get to work.”

***

Lovelace hit the power switch on the shuttle computer again. Nothing happened. This was going _great_.

She looked up from the computer. Fourier and Selberg were in quiet conversation on the other side of the shuttle, Fourier making wide gestures at the walls and floor and things as she spoke. They’d made good progress since last week. Kept moving, kept working.

“How’s everything going over there?” Lovelace said, interrupting.

“Well,” Fourier said. “Selberg was jus t saying that we’re going to need to reinforce the wall here.” She  pointed as she spoke; the “wall” in this scenario was still an awkward patchwork of metal panels; reinforcement was an understatement.

“Do you think you can pry any more material off one of the Hephaestus’ interior walls?” Lovelace asked Selberg.

“Most likely,” he said slowly.

“Great. Rhea?” This last was bit addressed to the empty air in front of her. “Can you direct Dr. Selberg to the area of the station least likely to damage structurally integrity?”

Rhea’s response came in a flurry of electronic beeps: “Yes, Captain.”

“Alright then.” She turned back to the computer. One thing at a time. “You don’t need Fourier to go with you, do you?” This, directed to Selberg again. One person should be enough.

“No,” he said, drawing out the word. “Will go alone.”

When she looked up again, he was gone.

The computer was being uncooperative today. Which was, of course, no different from any other day. They’d torn it out from a less-used control console on the Hephaestus, but while they’d managed to get it to turn on, keeping it on—never mind actually getting it networked into the shuttle’s systems—was proving difficult.

The Hephaestus was supplying power, so that shouldn’t be an issue. But something in-between the power port and the computer console, the electricity was getting lost.

“Rhea,” she said. “Can you track that energy flow at all? What’s wrong?”

“Not sure,” Rhea said. “It’s not on my end, though. The power’s _definitely_ making it as far as the shuttle before getting lost.”

Lovelace snorted. “Yes, thank you, Rhea. How could I possibly insinuate it was ever be on your end?” She turned. “Dr. Fourier,” she said, looking towards her. “Do you want to help me take apart the computer wiring again?”

“Sure,” Fourier said. “Though…”

“What is it?” Lovelace said.

“There’s only so long we can put off figuring out the major things. Like life support. And power.”

Lovelace sighed. “We’ll cross those respective bridges when we come to them,” she promised. “One thing at a time, you know?”

Fourier met her eyes, and then nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I guess that’s fair.”

Lovelace moved to pull aside the frame covering the hastily-assembled computer wiring. She picked up a wire hanging loose in the jumble of them. “Do you have any idea if this was supposed to go somewhere?” she asked as Fourier approached behind her. Lovelace stared at the backside of the computer console, searching for answers. But there were way too many places for the loose wire to go, and that was assuming it hadn’t been intended for something not originally built into this particular computer. 

Fourier, at her side now, took a moment to look at the mess, and pointed over Lovelace’s shoulder to say, “I think that one was supposed to go in _this_ port.” Lovelace handed her the wire, and watched quietly as Fourier set to work. 

Standing there, so close, she found herself suddenly intensely aware of Fourier’s physical presence. Of the proximity her body in this small, poorly-heated space, the way the dim electric light played off the freckles on her face.

The station was so empty. So many people were gone. But Fourier was here, starry-eyed and brilliant. That had to count for something.

(Selberg was too, some small part of her mind reminded her. And Rhea, always Rhea. But right in that moment it didn’t feel quite as relevant as the immediacy of Fourier’s presence.)

Fourier moved to begin booting up the computer console, ignorant of Lovelace’s thoughts.

***

Meals were always strange these days, the mood torn between trying to keep it brisk. efficient, and wanting to linger on these quiet moments. Or maybe that was just her, just Lovelace clinging to this one small moment of rest that she allowed herself.

Selberg, for his part, did not seem inclined to linger. Today at least, he was gone as soon as he’d eaten. (Which admittedly didn’t take long, given the sizes of their carefully-rationed portions.) So for now, she and Fourier were alone. Relatively speaking. 

They were done eating, trash cleared to the side, and for all intents and purposes, they were done here. They could go back to work, go back to the crushing hopelessness of their reality.

Neither of them made any move to leave.

Outside, the star shone bright orange-red against the black of space beyond. Fourier was standing just beside the window now, silhouetted by the red dwarf’s light, and Lovelace moved towards her. She was staring out at Wolf 359, and Lovelace followed her gaze, uncertain what to make of her apparent focus.

After another moment’s silence, Lovelace said aloud, “I hate that damned star,” if for nothing else than to break the silence that had begun to build.

“Really?” Fourier said, turning from the window to face her. “I’ve always thought it was sort of pretty.”

Lovelace raised an eyebrow in question. “Have you, now?”

“I mean…” Fourier shrugged. “It’s an alien star, lightyears away from Earth,” Fourier said. “There’s something amazing about that. About just being here.”

“That alien star killed Hui,” Lovelace said. She couldn’t really believe they were having this conversation. “And Lambert, and Fisher. This stopped being amazing a long time ago.” 

“Lovelace…” Fourier said, turning to meet her gaze. “ _Disease_ killed Hui and Lambert. Not the star.”

“For all we know, Wolf 359 caused the disease.” It was ridiculous, it was petty, to blame the star. To make an argument of this. But she needed to blame someone, needed to have something else to take the responsibility for everything that had happened.

“That’s really not how that works.”

“Can you rule it out, though?” Lovelace said. “With this particular star?”

“I suppose I get what you’re saying,” Fourier said. 

The two of them stood by the window together, now, in silence, stood right alongside one another. The quiet was so intense Lovelace wondered how it was at all possible, here, on this ship. 

Then Fourier was leaning her head on her shoulder, and Lovelace stopped wondering. For this one moment, she’d just let it be.

Maybe it was beautiful, she thought, as she watched out the window. In a sad sort of way.

***

Lovelace was only really half awake this hour of the morning, only half of the distance covered between her quarters and the docking bay where the shuttle-in-progress was being stored. Everything still felt sort of bleary, out of focus.

As she moved through the hallway, she went through the plan for the day in her head: supply run on the interior of the ship, see what they couldn’t scrape up. Then seeing how much of that they could incorporate into their plans. That was the optimistic way of putting it; if they couldn’t find something to supplement the computer casing with, they wouldn’t get much of anywhere today.

Or possibly, at all.

Fourier appeared close behind her before Lovelace could spend too much time on that particular thought. 

“Morning,” she said. “What’s the plan for the day?” 

Lovelace wondered vaguely at what point it was that they’d fallen into this pattern—each work day centered carefully around building their escape vehicle, each person with loosely-designated roles.

“I want to get the last structural components of the shuttle figured out today,” she said. “We’re running low on supplies.” It sounded an awful lot better when she put it like that.

“Where are you planning on collecting more?” Fourier asked. Right in one.

“That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it?” she said aloud. After Fourier made no response she continued, “I really have no idea.”

“Oh!” Fourier said, actually stopping in her tracks. “I kept meaning to mention it—there’s this storeroom, a couple turns down that way—“ She gestured back the way they’d come. “Where all sorts of miscellaneous odds and ends seem to have gotten dumped. I’d been thinking we might be able to turn up some useful supplies in there.”

“Fourier, I could just about kiss you right now.”

“You won’t hear any complaints from me,” Fourier said, and it should have been a joke but there was a hesitancy in her voice, a nervousness that made Lovelace stop and look at her, mentally play back the conversation.

 _Oh_.

Fourier was watching her now, hands fidgeting. A million thoughts raced through Lovelace’s mind at once, but there was one that stood out, more than anything.

She leaned in and kissed her. More hesitant than she’d like to admit.

It only lasted a fraction of a moment, and when the two of them parted they just stood, staring at each other. The world didn’t come crashing down around them. Nothing changed. The Hephaestus was just as still and empty as before.

Back to work, then. “We should get going.”

“What?” Fourier said. “I mean—Captain—I mean, Lovelace—what?”

“You’re right. We should head to that store room,” Lovelace said. “See what we can’t find.”

Fourier folded her arms. “You can’t just do that.”

Lovelace sighed. “Alright,” she said. “Fine. Listen. Fourier, I like you; I think you’re pretty great. You wanna catch a movie or something later, I’m all for it. But right now, we have a job to do. And it’s not an optional one. More the life-and-death variety. You hear me?”

“I hear you,” Fourier said, soft.

“Thank you,” Lovelace said, and meant it. She turned to start moving again, then stopped, swore softly to herself, and said, “Rhea!”

“Yes, Captain?” Rhea said, sounding far too amused.

“Not _one word_ about this to Selberg, you hear me?”

***

The storeroom was poorly lit, for whatever reason—the power diverted to some other part of the ship?—and searching had quickly proven to be pretty futile. 

So far, they’d found some suspicious-looking copper wire and a ton of utterly useless crap. Fourier had insisted on trying to work through them in a logical order, but that was proving a hopeless task. The boxes were numbered, mostly, but if those numbers had ever corresponded to anything, it had long since been lost.

At first it had been almost fun, the two of them laughing over whatever strange thing they turned up that time, trying to cut through the awkwardness of their conversation in the hall. But after the first twenty times or so, Lovelace was pretty much done being surprised by literally anything they found.

Her thoughts kept drifting back to that kiss. She hadn't consciously realized how much she’d wanted to do that until the moment came, and now she couldn’t help thinking of how badly she wanted to do it again.

But there was work to be done now. There’d be plenty of time to play out whatever romantic fantasies her mind had cooked up _after_ they made it back to Earth.

“Captain!” Fourier called, and Lovelace snapped back to attention. Fourier was busy inspecting a rather unusual-looking box. As Lovelace approached, she could make out the number 98 had been scrawled onto the side. If it wasn’t for that fact she might not have thought to call it a box at all; it was _itself_ an object worth her attention.

Assuming it was what she thought it was.

“Oh my god,” she said aloud, running a hand along the top of the hinged lid. “Is this…?”

“A cryochamber,” Fourier said.

“Do you think—” Lovelace said, running a hand along the top. She expected it to be cold to the touch, but it wasn’t; it hadn’t been used in a long time. “Do you think it would work?”

“I think we can make it work.” Fourier was smiling, which was always a good sign. 

“There’s only the one,” Lovelace said, trying to think it through. “But that’s still _huge_. We can cut down on our rations for the trip by almost half, cut down on the amount of space the person in it takes up…”

This changed _everything_.

***

A knock on the door, hollow and metallic. Painfully loud in the quiet.

For a moment Lovelace wondered if she’d lost track of time. She’d been sleeping fitfully for a couple hours now, and it could well have been morning already. But a digital clock beside her informed her that it was closer to 4 AM. 

Oh, god, was there some sort of horrible emergency?

But when she opened the door—now in a panicked state, trying to think of all of the things that could have gone wrong, (Had something blown up? Why wasn’t Rhea the one telling her? Was _Rhea_ the one in trouble?)—all she found was Fourier, looking tired as all hell.

“Fourier,” Lovelace said, unable to come up with anything else to say.

“Lovelace,” she said.

After another moment of just standing there, Lovelace said, “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Fourier said. “It’s just, well, I had a thought! That is, I had an idea, that I thought might help with improving the shuttle’s structural stability, and I thought maybe I’d get to work, but I wanted you to look over it before I did anything, because I’d hate to mess it up. So I thought, hey, why not see if you’re awake?”

“Fourier,” Lovelace said, slowly. “It’s 4 AM.”

“Sorry,” Fourier said. “I know. It’s—Sorry.” She paused. “Maybe there is something wrong. Maybe, everything?”

Lovelace smiled. “You got that right.” And then: “Do you want to come in?”

Fourier nodded sharply, and stepped inside. She shut the door behind herself.

“Are you okay?” Lovelace said.

“I don’t know,” Fourier said, absent-mindedly resting a hand on the wall. “I couldn’t sleep, is all. Haven’t been able to much in a while now. Thought maybe it'd be good to get work done, but I don’t think anything I’ve come up with at this hour is any use to anyone.”

“You can talk to me,” she said. “If you want to, or anything.” She didn’t want to pressure her. Wasn’t sure she wanted to pressure her, if this was really a conversation she wanted to have. But they had to stick together; she was the captain, and Fourier was her crew, and she was going to be there for her.

“I’m tired,” Fourier said. “I’m just really tired. But also…”

“Also?” Lovelace prompted.

“I’m also _terrified_!” Fourier said. “I’m terrified that I’m going to catch the same disease that took Hui. Terrified that I’m going to die up here one way or another. And I’m terrified that I’m _not_ , that I’m going to have to go home and live the rest of my life with memories of—of this, and I’m terrified that we’re never going to find a way to power the shuttle, and I’m terrified that _you’re_ going to die, because I—because I—“

Lovelace took Fourier’s hand in hers. Because just now that was all she could do. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re going to make it home.” 

They sat in silence for a moment, and then Lovelace said, “Hey. I ever tell you about that time I got Rhea to lock Lambert outside?” It felt strange to say Lambert’s name—it hurt, really to think about it, to think about him being gone. 

But Fourier did manage a weak smile. So maybe it was worth it. “You mean, as in, outside of the station?” she asked. ”In space?”

Lovelace nodded. “Yeah. Fisher needed help outside doing some routine maintenance, and it wound up falling to him. He was being obnoxious about it, all ‘This isn’t supposed to be my job.’” She hesitated a moment, and then on instinct, added, “You remember, yeah, Rhea?”

“To be fair, it really wasn’t his job,” Rhea said. 

“Hey, did I ask?” Lovelace said. But she was smiling. It was good to hear her voice. “Anyways, you totally thought it was hilarious.”

“How long was he out there?” Fourier asked, a genuine note of concern in her voice.

“Mm, half an hour maybe? It wasn’t all that long, really.”

“I—“ Fourier started to say, and then stopped. “This one time,” she started again after a pause, “Hui was trying to show me these readouts he had printed out. He went to grab them, and he dropped them, and, well… Long story short, they were inches away from being vented out the airlock.” She smiled. “He spent something like two _hours_ going after them. It would have been like a billion times faster to just print new ones.” She raised her gaze to Rhea’s speaker. “I guess we have you to thank for averting that particular disaster, too.”

“Unsurprising, really,” Rhea said.

“And where was I during this terrible crisis?” Lovelace said with mock indignation. “You didn’t think to tell your commanding officer?”

“You were busy. I don’t remember what with.”

Lovelace looked at Fourier; her gaze lingered on the edge of her face, the constellation of freckles splayed across her nose. Her smile.

She was so, so happy to just be in a room with this woman. 

Rhea said something else that she wasn’t paying enough attention to catch. Both of these women, she mentally amended. Rhea was one of the closest friends she’d ever had.

Fourier, well, Fourier was something else. Maybe. If she let her be.

***

The shuttle were mostly quiet, mostly empty, at this time of day.

Selberg had already finished work, headed back to his quarters to do whatever the hell it was he did when he was alone these days. Lovelace was checking over the equipment they’d been using one last time. Rhea, last she’d heard, was in the midst of debugging. And Fourier—

“Did you hear that?” Fourier said now from behind her, her voice just above a whisper.

Lovelace turned to look at her. “Hear what?”

“There,” Fourier said. “Like…”

A scratching, shuffling sound from outside the shuttle. (She remembers: noises late at night coming from the depths of the ship, from the walls, like there’s something _in_ the walls.)

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said. There shouldn’t be anything they could hear from here, even if she’d been right before, even if there was _something_ on the Hephaestus with them. But the shuttle was still just sitting in the middle of the docking bay. 

What if it wasn’t in the walls anymore?

“Selberg?” Fourier called softly. There was no response.

“It’s nothing,” Lovelace said again. More certain this time. This was utterly ridiculous; she wasn’t a child to be spooked by the slightest noise. Not with all the shit they’d been through up here.

The sound, again. She met eyes with Fourier. 

“Nothing!” she said. A shout this time. “Do you hear me, weird, creepy sound? I am not afraid of you.”

It went quiet. She almost wanted to laugh.

“I’m not afraid,” she said again, quieter. “You know, Fourier? After everything, I’m just not. Not of space, or the Hephaestus, and certainly not of Goddard goddamn Futuristics. I am tired of being afraid.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Fourier said.

Lovelace didn’t know how to respond. It wasn’t easy. But it also wasn’t even really a choice at this point, just a fact.

Silence. No noises now. Just the two of them staring at each other, so many words unsaid.

Lovelace tried to think of something, anything, to say. Fourier was right in front of her, their hands somehow now inches away from touching, and—

“Can you kiss me again?” Fourier said.

Lovelace could. 

There were things she couldn’t do just yet (get out, get home) but this, this she could do, this she _wanted_ to do. If they couldn't have an escape ship that could fly on its own, at least they had this. They each other.

As it turned out, kissing in space, with no gravity, was sort of awkward. There was nothing to ground them, and so they just held tightly to each other, one of Lovelace's hands buried in Fourier’s hair, her back now pressed to the wall. (It occurred to her that when it came to doing these things in zero G, Fourier probably had more experience than her.)

When they broke apart, (finally, reluctantly—briefly?) Lovelace looked at Fourier, at the ship they’d built together, in silence.

“You know, it’s sort of funny,” Fourier said, surprising her. 

“What is?”

“This wasn’t how it was ever supposed to go,” Fourier said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, this. Us.” She gestured vaguely towards Lovelace as she spoke. “I… Me and Hui, right? It was always supposed to be us. And you and Lambert—well, I can’t pretend I know what was going on there.”

“Careful,” Lovelace interrupted. “I’m not sure I like what you’re implying here.”

“No, it’s not _that_ ,” Fourier said. “But just… You barely talked to me for the first month of the mission. Did you know that? I don’t blame you, or anything; you had five other people to manage and a very large space station to run. I just never thought this is how it would go. It’s not how it usually does.” She paused. “Maybe I’ve been thinking about it too much.”

“Maybe you have,” Lovelace said. “Either way—meant-to-be or not, we’re here, right? We’re alive.”

“Hooray for us,” Fourier said, quiet.

***

Getting the cryopod into the shuttle had turned out to be no small matter, but they did it. They were stocking supplies, running endless tests on the shuttle’s systems. Everything seemed like it was coming together at last.

“Are you sure it’s ready?” Lovelace asked Fourier over the comms, watching the scrap-metal ship on the video feed. It looked ready to fall apart at a moment’s notice.

But they’d tested the integrity. It would hold.

“Pretty sure,” Fourier said, her voice distorted ever-so-slightly by static. Lovelace knew where she was—sitting in the shuttle, in Hephaestus airlock, spacesuit on and ready for any eventuality.

“Good luck,” Lovelace said. She barely heard Rhea echoing her words, Fourier’s enthused response as she prepared.

Lovelace had wanted to be part of the launch herself. But they couldn’t risk more people than necessary in the shuttle, and Fourier had _insisted_ on it being her, on being the one to test this spaceship she’d designed. So Lovelace would need to be here, to help on the Hephaestus’ side, in case something went wrong.

She wasn’t going to let anything go wrong. 

Here went nothing. “Rhea?” Lovelace said. “Is everything ready?”

“Everything is ready,” Rhea said.

“Okay,” Lovelace said. “Whenever you’re ready, Fourier.”

Fourier hit the ignition. The vehicle rose, uncertainly, went skidding out of the airlock that was not designed for any such maneuver. And disappeared out into space. 

And then they couldn’t see it. For one heartbeat—two, three—Lovelace imagined some terrible fate befalling her. They had the shuttle on a temporary generator that they’d managed to put together, but what if that failed? What if any number of other things failed? What if Fourier couldn’t get the navigation controls to work? Yes, she’d built it, but, still, it wasn’t exactly her trained skillset. But still, but still—

But then Rhea was informing them that the shuttle had docked with the Hephaestus, for real now. Fourier’s voice rang loudly through the speakers, a triumphant shout echoing through the space.

“We’ve still got a lot of work left to do,” Lovelace said. “Don’t celebrate just yet.”

“Hey, one step at a time,” Fourier said from the shuttle. “Right?”


End file.
